


Of Love and Haruka

by WindChime



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Other, Raising Some Questions, Reference to Kanojo Ni Naru Hi, Sexuality, fem!Haru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindChime/pseuds/WindChime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The people of this society maintain a fixed male to female ratio.<br/>When there are fewer woman, some men change into a female. The same also applies for female in the case where there are fewer male. It's a phenomenon much like what happens to clownfish, and is commonly called 'emergence'. If it should occur, it would usually happen in younger children. A case where it happened to adults was never reported, and the occurrences in teens are very rare.<br/>But it happened to Haruka, the lone female swimmer in the team. How would that change her- or his- relationship with Makoto, who is his- or was her- boyfriend?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Love and Haruka

Haruka and Makoto were childhood friends; they have known each other for as long as Makoto could remember himself, or perhaps even before that.

He knew that Haruka, even as a child, was fixated to swim only free. She was independent, strong, quiet (in the most meaningful ways), and didn't care about what anyone would think of her. She also didn't care about winning, as though she couldn't bother to be bothered by anyone. That, of course, was an exception only to Rin- Haruka's friend who tends to provoke certain complicated feelings within Haruka's unshakable world. It was one of the only thing Makoto couldn't do to her, and deep down, he resented his own uselessness in that field.

Though Haruka never showed much of her emotions, she could also read Makoto like an open book. She knew of all different sides to his seemingly simple smile, even the ones which were used to the minimal: the 'Onii-chan is getting angry' smile, the 'You can't do that, Haru' smile, the 'Oh, that's a good idea' smile, and most of all, her most favourite 'Good morning Haru-chan' smile. It never cease to amaze her, how he could be so expressive with his facial expressions when she was the complete opposite. The stoic one. The distant Nanase Haruka.

There was no one who knew Makoto as well as Haruka, and there was no one who knew her as well as he did too. They were the inseparable, and were dubbed by the whole town as the _two bodies in perfect harmony._

So, when they decided to finally date in high school (Makoto fumbled out a confession after a swimming practice one day, red as a tomato, and Haruka accepted with her never wavering gaze), no one was surprise. Maybe except for Makoto, who cried afterward. Rei congratulated them with “This is so beautifu!” while Nagisa basically whooped for the whole world to hear, saying, “that took you so long, Mako-chan!”

They went on like that, as Makoto and Haruka. They were happy. They knew each other best, and nothing was ever going to change what they had.

Until one day, the most unthinkable came along.

 

* * *

 

Haruka woke up in pain.

Every muscle in her body was strained, pulled to their utmost limit. Her throat was parched dry. Her head screamed agonizingly, but most of all, _God_ , her spine felt as though it was stretched and snapped.

She rolled off her bed with a painful grasp, trying to grab onto anything, anything at all. But instead of grabbing on to the table beside her bed, she stumbled, brushing down her alarm clock and a photograph of her grandmother.

Something was wrong. She needed to call someone. Now.

Haruka pushed herself off the floor but was sent sprawling right back down. She couldn't walk. A jolt of pure panic went through her. S _he couldn't walk. Why?_

Crawling with her head barely lifted above the wooden floor, Haruka managed to get out of her room. She almost made it to the phone in the hallway when she heard the backdoor rattled; Makoto was coming in like usual.

“Haru, I'm coming in-”

“Makoto!” Haruka called, her voice came out dryly as though someone drained her body of liquid. Immediately, the rattling changed into a full-on slam.

“Haru?! Haru, where are you?! Is everything alright?!”

“Up... Up here...” she whimpered. The pain was excruciating, over taking all her senses. The last thing she remembered was the sound of his footsteps towards her, the rumbling of the floor...

Then nothing.

 

* * *

 

Pain.

Wetness.

People shouting.

_Noisy..._

“ _She's not going to make it...”_

“ _It's already begun!”_

“ _She's going through the second stage of emergence! We need to do something!”_

“ _There's nothing we can do. The cocoon has already been formed.”_

“ _She's going to die.”_

“DO SOMETHING!”

_Shut up..._

Pain.

Silence.

 

* * *

 

A glint of piercing light greeted Haruka when she opened her eyes for the first time in weeks. Not surprising, considering the fact that she woke up right below the light bulb on the ceiling.

It took her a while to get everything together, and when she did, the only thing she could do was rolled her head to the side tiredly. She took a deep breathe, smelling a distinct smell of disinfectant and alcohol.

She was in the hospital.

Someone walked out of the bathroom with a flower vase, and when she saw Haruka, she nearly dropped the half-filled container in her hand.

“Haru!” Mrs. Nanase exclaimed, rushing to the bedside and pulled Haruka into a tight embrace. “Haru, are you feeling okay?”

Haruka nodded, disoriented. Her mother released her left arm from around Haruka's shoulder and reached to the red button beside the bed.

“Oh, God, Haru, I was so worried! When Tachibana-kun called and told us that you collapsed, then the doctor-”

_Makoto._

“Mom, what happened?” someone asked the question Haruka wanted to ask, voice rough and low.

Haruka looked around the room, but there was no one in there other than Haruka and her mother.

It took her more than five seconds to understand that it was her own voice.

She sounded... different.

Haruka began to slowly observe her arm which she threw around her mother, only to discover a stranger's limb, long and bony with leaned muscle. This wasn't hers. What the hell was going on?

“Mom...?”

Before anything else could be said, a team of nurses and doctors busted through the door. They shuffled professionally towards Haruka and her mother, calmly separated them, and a few escorted Mrs. Nanase outside while the rest swarmed around the small bed. Shouting. Yelling.

And to Haruka's terror, one of them said “He's alive!”

 

* * *

 

_The people of this society maintain a fixed male to female ratio._

_When there are fewer woman, some men change into a female. The same also applies for female in the case where there are fewer male. It's a phenomenon much like what happens to clownfish, and is commonly called 'emergence'. If it should occur, it would usually happen in younger children. A case where it happened to adults was never reported, and the occurrences in teens are very rare._

_When this happens, the emergence process is a burden the body cannot withstand, causing the mortality rate to be extremely high._

 

 

* * *

 

It's been three weeks since anyone last saw Haruka, and Makoto was worried out of his mind.

Sitting in the class while looking at Haruka's empty chair made him feel... useless. He could still remember her trembling body on the floor though she never had the chance to voice out her pain, and to him, it was like living the nightmare all over again.

On that day, he had entered her house like usual. It was a routine he was used to. He would call out, no one would answer, and he would find her in her bathing suit, soaking in the bath tub with her eyes closed. But just when he was about to make his way in, Haruka broke their routine by calling out his name in a distressed voice.

That meant something was very, very wrong.

He nearly knocked the door off its hinges when he shoved it out of the way to get to Haruka. Once he found her unconscious on the floor, he called the hospital, then right after, the Nanase families who were away in Kyoto. He recalled the paramedics rushing in, them taking her away, but refused to let him go along when he practically begged on his knees. And when his parents drove him to the hospital later that morning, they had the guts to say that her condition was confidential.

Makoto had never been so angry. He wanted to just bust through the hospital and know _what the hell was going on with Haruka._

Instead of that, he let himself be quietly lead out of the hospital. He couldn't afford to cause the scene, because then he knew he was probably going to be suspended from any chances of seeing Haruka ever again... at least on the hospital ground.

After that? He spent the rest of his time worrying, trying to get into contact with anyone who could help him see Haruka.

No one could.

Then three long weeks went by, and still nobody told him about what was going on. The Nanase had called to inform them that Haruka was _probably going to be fine,_ but nothing further. They simply looked away awkwardly when he asked, then tried to avoid him altogether. For some reason, this all seemed so secretive. But what on earth could be going on about his girlfriend that even he, the boyfriend, couldn't know?

Makoto had no clue. He was stressed, tired, and worried sick. He couldn't sleep, couldn't breath easily when he recalled that this might have just been the longest time he was separated from Haruka ever since his birth. Sure, there were times when Haruka was on a trip with her parents (where she discovered her first love, that sparkling waterfall), but that ended within one week and a half. He missed her. Missed her quietness, her silent gaze, her invisible smile. This long separation was starting to take toll on him, causing him to release some sort of tension that everyone could easily detect. No more Mr. Refreshing. Not when his girlfriend and best friend was hospitalized for unknown causes and unlimited time. Nowadays, everyone take precautions when they approached him.

(Well, with an exception to Nagisa who tried to sneak into the hospital once, only to be stopped by Rei. The blond boy was dragged out of the front door by his nurse uniform from eBay, yelling, “it ain't fair, Rei-chan!” while Rei was getting him away from a horde of hospital guards.)

Makoto sighed and rubbed his eyes. He missed Haruka so much.

Then, as if God was finally answering his laments for the past three weeks, the homeroom teacher walked in with the news.

“Sit down! Quiet!”

Every students stopped what they were doing and shuffled to their seats, and before long, class was quiet. The teacher pushed up his glasses and cleared his throat uncomfortably, then made an announcement in a loud voice.

“So, as you may know, Nanase Haruka was admitted to the hospital three weeks ago due to her... special medical condition.”

The class murmured, and for the first time in weeks, Makoto found himself listening to the teacher with interest.

_Did he just mention Haru?_

“Today, she was feeling better and decided to rejoin the class.”

The whole class cheered and Makoto's mouth dropped open. He couldn't believe it. But then the cheering stopped when the grim expression on Watanabe-sensei slowly killed the crowd down. All was silent again, and this time, it seemed as though the teacher himself was at lost of what he should say.

“Um, Sensei? Isn't that a good thing?” one of the students asked meekly. Watanabe-sensei nodded.

“Yes, yes indeed. However, there is something different about Nanase that you guys should know about before she comes in, and I want everyone to note that this is still the same Nanase Haruka we know, alright? I want you guys to be sensitive and act appropriately,” said the teacher. For some reason, his gaze kept lingering on Makoto who was still too shocked to say anything.

_Haru was coming back? Really? Why didn't anyone tell him anything?_

Makoto didn't know what the teacher was talking about, all he knew was that he missed Haruka _so bad_. He needed to see her. Now.

Just when Makoto was about to bolt off his seat, the door opened and someone entered.

Same grace. Same blue eyes. Same dark hair. Same expression.

But this person was different.

This person was a boy.

 

* * *

 

The class room went dead silent. If a pin were to drop, the whole school would be able to hear it echo through the air.

Then everyone burst.

“EMERGENCE?!”

“Nanase turned into a boy?!”

“HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE FREAKIEST THING EVER!”

“We have to take a picture of this!”

“Nanase went through emergence!!!”

Makoto could hear none of it. All he could do was locked his eyes on Haruka while his mind tried to process whatever was going on.

_Haru... went through emergence?_

He kept his eyes trained on the boy in front of him. He looked like Haruka, but... but different. This boy was taller. His hair was shorter. His body, though still smaller than Makoto, looked more masculine, defined by lean muscles. And though his face wore the same expression of boredom Haruka always wear, his features were sharper.

All it took was one glance into his ocean eyes, and Makoto knew right away that no matter, he would still be hopelessly, immensely in love with Haruka. Emergence or not, this boy was Haruka. He was in love all over again, breathless like the first time he realized he loved her.

This was the same Haruka Makoto knew and loved.

Haruka strode right through the classmates who were still in awe as though he didn't see them at all, because none of them and their stares mattered. There was just him and Makoto. It has always been that way.

He headed right to where the taller boy with olive hair was standing with his jaw slacked.

“Haru...”

Haruka looked deep into Makoto's eyes, and he knew it: Makoto's feelings were still the same, still very much in love.

Before any word could be exchanged, Makoto tackled Haruka into a tight, heart-wrenching embrace, and the two clutched onto each other as they crashed to the floor.

Nothing has changed for them, because for Makoto, it was just a reunion between him and his dearest. This was it. Haruka was his lifeline. This was not about their gender, their sexuality, their classmates' shocked or disgusted face, or about the criticisms and difficulties they knew would follow.

This was just about to people who were very much in love.

 

This was just Makoto and Haruka, nothing more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading!  
> This is my first fanfiction on this website (and on this couple). To be honest, I am a little bit more than nervous.  
> The setting of this world (with the emergence) was based on a manga called Kanojo Ni Naru Hi. It was a very interesting concept, so I couldn't help myself. I have always wondered what it would be like if one day a person you claimed to love were to turn into the other gender- would you still love them the same? You tell me.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! This was made to be a one shot, but if you like it, give me feedbacks and maybe I'll be able to write a sequel about what happens after.  
> Review, please! (-3-)/


End file.
